....
-You need to have an air lock or an orange carboy cap and some hose with a bucket with water in it (normally called a "blow off tube") or 2 depending on how many of these kegs you plan on using as fermenters. These are under $10.00 for 2. My family uses airlocks for wine.
- You will also need a "racking cane" and/or siphon to move beer/wine out of the 1/2 bbl when it is done fermenting.
....
- The correct yeast (It is super cheap at the home brew store)... the way I understand it is brewers yeast for brewing and bakers yeast for baking...but I am sure there is someone that has a recipe that calls for the opposite.
- A place to move/store the finished product (commonly requires a corker and bottles for wine, for beer see below.)
Just being nitpicky-
Needing an airlock...it is good to have one, but people have made beer without them. A blowoff tube (or just a tube fixed into a bung with a hole in it) piped into a cup or jar of liquid will do as well, and honestly, a home depot bucket would work just fine without an airlock since it doesn't really seal anyway. Airlocks are great and cheap, but not 100% required.
A way to siphon beer out of the fermenter is advantageous, but a tube with a T on it (Flyguy's $3.00 siphon comes to mind) works just as well and costs next to nothing. Autosiphons are great, but I have found that they have a finite lifespan and fail occasionally.
additional stuff for beer:
- a large boil kettle (I suggest a 4 gallon at a minimum or see below for keggle). I think if you have or can get an old turkey deep fryer that it would work in a pinch...or you are going to be doing ALOT of really small batches and "mixing them into the 1/2 bbls."(This would almost be futile...as each "batch will take a few hours).
Indeed, a big boil kettle and a heat source to match will be one of the best investments you can make if you are planning on making 1bbl of beer.
-Brewers thermometer. about $5-15 depending on the store, I do not suggest a substitute that has glass and mercury.....its just a bad idea, not to mention a great way to burn/steam your hand.
Unless you are doing all grain and want to hit precise mash temps, I don't see a good reason to have one of these. The wort will boil when it is in the vicinity of 212F/100C.
- A food grade bottling bucket w/ spigot to fill your vessels (this is where you "rack" to for bottleing).
Again, IMHO a home depot bucket works great here. I use the same siphon (bump for Flyguy's $3.00 siphon!) that I use to rack the beer when bottling. CHeeeeap. I've never had good luck with cleaning the spigots and stopping their leaks in so-called "bottling buckets" . A clean hole-free bucket is great since it is cheap/free depending on where it comes from, it is easy to sanitize, and it is easy to mix in priming sugar in.
Or, go ultimate cheap and rack right from the fermenter into the kegs. Expect some cloudiness and trub on the first few glasses of beer dispensed.
....
Additional comments:
- Sterilize and sanitize EVERYTHING there are cheap things to do this with.
Sterilizing is not required here.
Sanitizing equipment is mandatory. Sterilization is a higher bar that most homebrewers couldn't accomplish anyway without something like an autoclave.
Bleach, iodophor (a type of iodine), starsan, boiling water...there are many sanitization methods available from cheap to almost as cheap.
What I would do if I were you and wanted beer:
I would look into making a "keggle" or at least a big boil pot out of 1 of the 1/2 bbls IF you had a way to boil 12 gallons of water (typically not going to happen on a stove top). then in theory you could boil your ingredients and move them to the other 1/2 bbl to use as a fermenter (You will NOT be able to use a racking cane for this as it will probably melt....)
I concur- I would probably go down that route too myself if I had that equipment.
OR you could "convert a cooler into a mash tun" and then move the wort from there to the fermenter.
Umm..OK, I got lost on this though. A cooler mash tun makes the wort that still needs to be boiled, cooled, and transfered into a fermenter. It isn't ready to be fermented after leaving the mashtun.
There are TONS of great helpful articles all over this forum just use the search. Also, very few people love to spend money on supplies and equipment but the reality is, it is a small price to pay for becoming a homebrewer/beer god(dess) to your friends and family. Having the basic equipment is better than trying to skimp out especially while you are getting started.
( You could dig a ditch with a tablespoon but a shovel and pick axe will be MUCH better, then after you have a few ditches under your belt you may feel the urge to get the back hoe. Also, the equipment is a 1 time purchase until it breaks so it is not like you need to spend hundreds of dollars per batch AND the more you make the less the equipment casts in theory. Remember, no one wants to get super frustrated then wait 6 weeks to drink something that tastes like it was strained trough hot garbage.)
:rockin:
I concur
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